Synergy IQ: 0:01

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Daniel Franco: 0:20

Hi there synergisers and welcome back to another episode of The creating synergy podcast. My name is Daniel Franco and today we have the one and only Nick Reade on the show. Nick is the chief executive of the department and Premier and Cabinet and the head of public sector. His current focus is on collaboration across government, the community and private sector, growing the economy innovation and making it easier for people to do business with government. He's a proud and passionate South Australian, and Nick has a breadth of experience in South Australia's business community, having served as CEO of the bank assign stage general manager for South Australia, Western Australia and northern territory for Westpac. His career in financial services spans over 30 years, during which Nick has held the responsibility for Small Business Banking nationally and build a strong track record in digital transformation, driving growth and innovation. Nick is also the alumni of the University of South Australia and the INSEAD in Paris. In this episode, Nick and I touch on his journey from where he began his career with CommSec all the way to his role as CEO at Bank USA Today, where he finds himself as the chief executive of department and Premier cabinet. We also deep dived into his learning experience during the INSEAD strategy course and how it helped him become much more confident in his role, the importance of feedback and building a diverse team. The journey through the rebranding of bank sa when he was CEO and the rise of the lovable piping striker, you might know the slogan, let's do this, and the role of CEO who sometimes has to make those unpopular decisions and the importance of bringing people on board for that change. We then talked about his career from private to public sector and understanding his role a little bit and day to day responsibilities as the CEO of the department. Nick also shares and explores the three strategic pillars that he and the team at DPC are looking to put into place to make it easier to deal with government. The challenges of the workforce shortages, recruitment and innovation in public sector was also a couple of topics that we discovered and the COVID impacts on South Australia. And finally, his plans and outlook for the future. I know you're absolutely going to love this chat. And if you'd like to learn more about some of the other amazing leaders that we've had on the creating synergy podcast and be sure to jump on our website at Synergy iq.com.au. Or check us out at the creating synergy podcast on all the podcast outlets. So welcome back to the creating synergy Podcast. Today, we have the one and only Nick Reade on the show CEO of DEP and Premier cabinet. Welcome to the show.

Nick Reade: 3:14

Thank you for having me.

Daniel Franco: 3:16

I want to start off the podcast, Nick, you're very busy man at the moment. I've I follow you intensely on the social media outlets, specifically LinkedIn, and you're at every single event that is currently going on at the moment and getting involved in everything has has life since you started in the new role.

Nick Reade: 3:38

Well, it's not so new anymore. That 10 months, I started in early February. So it's gone very quickly. I say, you know, don't feel a little bit like it's a dog years or something because it's a I never work so hard in my life. But But um, you know, I'm enjoying it. I'm definitely getting out and about, I think one of the, the elements, I've got sort of like a double headed role. I've got the chief executive of Department of premium cabinet, and also the head of the public sector. So on spinning probably a decent amount of my time on the head of the public sector on because I see that's where the greatest impact I can have. DPC is a well run department. I've got some good leaders in that department and a few have come in in recent times as well. So I feel like that's in good shape. Where I feel the biggest opportunities is to get out and about and engage with 110,000 public servants and that's

Daniel Franco: 4:33

my was the most employees in South Australia. Yes, that's

Nick Reade: 4:36

right. That's right. So the way we're the biggest sort of employer, by probably some way. And so that's, that's a challenge because it's a very diverse group of people from, you know, economic agencies like trade and investment through to health through to corrections and, you know, people looking after vulnerable families and children like child protection and human services. So where I was yesterday I was at the awards for human services, presenting them Make a Difference Award, which is all about sort of bringing to life, our public sector purpose. So I see Yeah, and the more I think and engage and connect with people that the more they can understand the purpose, the strategy, and how we're going about that some of the changes we're putting in place.

Daniel Franco: 5:20

Yeah, brilliant. Want to start off? We'll get into a little bit about your background. You've chief executive currently at the Department of cabinet, you're a member of the SA Economic Advisory Council, previously CEO of bank SA, worked in Westpac, obviously they're all bank, he says owned. Sorry, yeah, owned by Westpac and their general management roles. And a lot in the marketing world. Can you give us a little bit of a background and you had a tennis career at one point? Can you give us a little bit of a background about you know, who is Nick Reade and where you

Nick Reade: 5:56

Yeah, sure. So um, look, I'm, Adelaide born and came? bred. So strong passion for South Australia. So I was educated here, both at school and university. However, when I finished uni, I did this six years part time degree in what's nowadays called commerce, it was sort of it was called bachelor of management, I'd straddle the old institute of technology into uni essay. And I had majored in marketing. And at the time of doing that, I was working for a MP in Adelaide, no one can William straight. And at the end of that six years, I MP was centralizing their operations. And, but I also had good connections with head office. And I was offered a job in Sydney. And my wife and I jumped at it, you know, we're sort of young, we got married quite young, was only 25. And she was 23. And we just thought, you know, what are we going to lose? Well, we'll jump on a plane and off, we went and sold the house here in Adelaide and paid a ridiculous amount of money for a new house. In the time, it was a real stretch for us, we had to sort of mortgage ourselves to the hilt, just just to get into the market. But you know, obviously, I was with ANP. But then, very quickly got an opportunity to work for CommSec, only six months later, but it was my boss from ADP moved across exec, and he took me with him. And so I sort of, you know, roles got better, and, you know, times got better. And I then had opportunity to move down to I observed in Melbourne in late 90s. And again, into the .com space, I was driving the marketing for anz.com, which is the digital division of ANZ, and then the bubble burst the first time around, in shoe 1009, I saw I had to go get a real job. Because that year I saw and running, having a senior role in ninety.com was just a crazy time, because it was just so busy and just learn a lot but and the pace was just out of control. And

Daniel Franco: 8:19

the banks got affected by the .com. Boom,

Nick Reade: 8:22

yeah, well, in a sense that there was this hysteria around it, you know, younger people don't win around in the sense of that time. But older people like me were and it was that period where we had the first time we had these crazy valuations of companies just yet.com, the NDA and suddenly, you're worth a billion dollars with no revenue and, and, you know, that all just came to a screeching halt at the end of 2000. So, banks had invested heavily in digital probably hyped it a little bit themselves, you know, some of the more traditional parts of banks who have gained a significant loss. But what happened ultimately, is the underlying technology was never gonna go away. And it's so fundamentally transformational that, that what happened was that some of the sort of hype disappeared, but the technology and the ability to use that to improve customer experience maintained right so that's where I had a lot of learning. From the contact days, its contact was the first business in Australia to do e commerce, trade on the internet in any shape or form. So I was right at the front of that all the way through to transit and then into every role since I've had a heavy dose of digital but anyway, the bubble burst and then I had to go and work in the sort of core bank and I ended up working with for Brian Hartzer, who ended up being the CEO of Westpac and hence the connection there later on. But so Brian took me on in in the credit cards area, and I worked my way up to end up running, running the credit cards, business and And then Brian had gone on to more senior roles. And then he asked me to go and work in small business banking, and which, at the time, I thought, well, what I've done wrong because back in those days in the was around 2007. The small business area vines, it wasn't the place that people wanted to be, it was sort of I sort of being declining in market share, and not the not the favorite place to be. But I took it on as a challenge and ended up having seven fantastic user and ended up being the advisor everybody want to be. And then Brian had left. ANZ gone to Royal Bank of Scotland in back to Westpac, and he asked me to come and run back, as I say, back home to Adelaide, and which was great for the family. And and so you had kids at this stage? Yes, it's and how many got two girls so that born in Melbourne, and big to come back to RUN Vegas, it was sort of a dream job. I never thought growing up here that I'll never have that opportunity. But it was, yeah, it's obviously changed a bit over the years, but it's still the local brand. And it had a period of multi year decline in market share. And so another challenge for me to take it on and try and transform it, which ultimately did so.

Daniel Franco: 11:27

Well done. Kudos on the career. It's an amazing one. I want to jump back into the early years, I've heard some stories where you you were sent to France to do a strategic development course. Yes. Can you give us a little bit of background around that?

Nick Reade: 11:45

Yeah, sure. Sure. So you know, I mean, the story goes, I was, you know, I had a quite a bit of success at ANZ through a number of different roles. But, you know, there was, I guess, a development gap that was seen from my my managers around strategy development, so So I sort of going, okay, cool, no props, and we sort of thought of what are the options to sort of try and work on that, so that we identified, you know, essentially, an advanced management program with a heavy dose of strategy would be the way to go. So we looked at, you know, once in the US and, and NCAA was one of them, and instead just had to have happened to have a bit more in the strategy space. So I went off was, I think it was around 2005. I remember it because it was the last year, Lance Armstrong, seven, Tour de France, and I went to him. So sad to see that last day. The only day we had often out of 30 in a row to, to watch that person. I remember the year but the the the point of it was a living thing. Morning, noon, and night is basically just it's pretty hard slog, but it was a great experience. And I think that, you know, people say, you know, what did you get out of it? And you know, to be quite honest, the biggest thing I got out of it was confidence. And yes, you learn a lot of strategic frameworks and things to to apply. But you know, I got confidence out of it. And the reason I got confidence out of exhausts intimidated by, if you look at the list of people on syndrome on the on the set as like 100 people in two groups of 50. And I'm looking at all the titles of these people I was I was running credit cards at the time, so I wasn't, you know, my job wasn't anything to sneeze at, but, but I was like, Oh my God, because anyway, so we sit there in the first day. And I think it's probably a little bit to do with Australians, but sit there on the first day and you straight into these group work and you're working on a on a like a little mini project. And it was like a case study. And I remember going off into multiple hours of in this little room with these, these people and who had been allocated in this little subgroup. And it was like the CEO of his French huge French insurance company that head of Italian gas, the head of Belgian post, and also a guy go all in on us this little guy from Australia runs credit cards. Anyway, so we're talking about this case study and then I said well, he's gonna present back to the group and these these guys are going not me. Yeah, not

Daniel Franco: 14:35

me. What was it? Was it was there a language barrier there? Oh, no, that was just escape. Yeah. And

Nick Reade: 14:43

so, you know, it just, it just a little example of sort of, when I say I've got confidence out of it not wasn't just that it was the 30 day progress, and then comfort zone and then you know, I came back down, geez, Australians, we can match it on a global scale. And it's my first sort of global opportunity to mix it with senior leaders from around the world. And, and I've got a sense that, you know, not just me, but others, people that I know, in leadership roles in Australia are actually world class, you know. So it gave me that confidence to come back. And then I come back. And to be honest, I didn't feel like much changed in the sense of the strategic side. But it was suddenly that box had been ticked. And that's a really important learning for people. Sometimes it's the the actual learning experience. Sometimes it's, it's a perception that you give off and people go, you know, something's different, and that that gap that I was perceived to have had disappeared.

Daniel Franco: 15:42

Almost overnight, you start acting in the role. Yeah, yeah, you position yourself as I am. Yeah. strategic person, will then come to you for strategy advice. Oh, yeah.

Nick Reade: 15:53

And maybe there's a little bit more, you know, to talk a little bit more confidently without, you know, being arrogant or whatever. But you just might sound like, you know, just you just come across a bit. Yeah. And that in itself might give the impression that you know, more about the topic or 100. Anyway, so it was a learning experience for that. So it was well worth doing. It was just sometimes when people ask me about what do you get out of that? Yes. I learned a bunch of things on the on the sort of strategic critical, you know, how to apply frameworks to different challenges, but but it was actually confidence.

Daniel Franco: 16:27

Yeah, that's brilliant. What was it about you? Before when they said, like, what, why are you? Why did they say, Nick, we actually want you to improve in the strategic? Was there something about your leadership capabilities that they really liked? Was there something about the way you managed, that they really liked but what was it about you do you believe? Well, I

Nick Reade: 16:49

think at the time, I guess, there was a very strong development process within ANZ, you know, some of the sort of talent programs. And, you know, ultimately, I was on the sort of management board succession, sort of program where, you know, leaders were seen to, you know, what some leaders were saying to the future leaders of the bank, and yeah, so they want to develop those people and, you know, identify where the gaps are, and work on, you know,

Daniel Franco: 17:16

because it's a pretty 30 day course, you're saying, or one month, from the business, and, yeah, it's a big mess.

Nick Reade: 17:22

It was a big investment in time, a big investment in cost, for the course, and the travel and accommodation, and all the rest of it. But you know, it's not unusual for, you know, large corporations to invest in their people. But it's, you know, they don't do it for everybody, because it's very expensive to do that if everybody's input. But ultimately, it was part of that sort of process. And, you know, I certainly was keen to develop myself, develop myself and improve and learn, you know, and it was great for that, you know, because there's no matter how well you were doing, there was always feedback around how you can improve. And, you know, another insight was when I was, you know, having a lot of success. We had one of the one of the sort of external. So that's the top sort of 100 executives had a process where you got feedback from an external search company called Egon Zehnder. And, you know, my feedback was a little brutal, geez, you know, what about that, but it was simply one of those sort of formative moments where you're sort of young as a young boy, yeah. And you probably thought you knew everything. And I've been and, and, and, you know, probably didn't do that. But it was someone like an external party coming in and saying, you know, Nick, you're doing really well. I'm, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. But, you know, the big part for me was, your team's full of mini me's, you know, yeah. And so the, you know, when I was a little bit offended, because we've been doing so well, but the point was, I hadn't built diversity in the team, I built people who just thought like me, you know, did love me? Yeah. And, and that was my first sort of aha moment about building diversity into attain. And so from then on, you know, took me You know, I probably sold for 24 hours, but then sort of snapped out of it and shit, this is good feedback. I need to I need to, I need to respond to this. And so from then on, in my other leadership roles at ANZ, to and still to this day, one of the absolute priorities for me when I'm building a team is thinking about the diversity of experience and and, you know, diversity in all respects. Yeah. And then and only then can you really get solid thinking and solid input into your decision making and two G's sort of strategy?

Daniel Franco: 19:52

Absolutely. Well, there's a question coming about the team that you're building at DC p, but sorry, the PC, the

Nick Reade: 20:01

too many on the public, especially those two

Daniel Franco: 20:04

I get all the time. That's protection. So I want to just quickly jump into your time now at West bracket slash Bank SA we went on to become the CEO? I do know at the time it was you mentioned earlier, it was returning it wasn't performing the well. First CEO gig. Yeah. Being role. And you were a big part of what I love the the piping strike and marketing campaign, you know, let's do this. I can you explain to me that world? And how you turn that around?

Nick Reade: 20:44

Yeah, look, I think I mean, thank you sighs is sort of, you know, in many ways, much loved by the community, because it's very much part of the community. It's been it's the oldest bank in South Australia, obviously had some some interesting times over the years. But when I joined, you know, essentially, we've lost approximately 1% match every year for 20 years. Because back in the day, we were the government's bank, and therefore, we had a dominant share in the in the mid to high 30%. In sort of home loans, for example. Yep. But the reality is that had come off and, and we sort of, I did some research, and very quickly got feedback that we were a little a little bit off the place. And, you know, one of the things that really shocked me, was feedback that we were off the pace of South Australia, because at that time, South Australia as a state wasn't going that well. So it was a bit like well, so that was a bit of a wake up call that we had to do something here. And, and so one of the things that I drew upon straightaway was my marketing background and, and thought about repositioning the brand. And it was interesting, because the brand in the desert P logo been around for a long time, and a lot of people really loved it. And it sort of really stood for the, you know, the the emblem for South Australia, but it also signified the old way of doing things and when when the words were coming back around comfortable and staid and the sorts of words of work words that I wanted to sort of brand that I wanted to lead. So it also had a lot of internal love from from sort of people like Gao, Kelly, who was the CEO was yeah, you know, so I remember having to go to Sydney and I had to have a meeting with Gail to say, I want to change the brand and and I could Yeah, well it was it was always a bit scared. You know, that's not gonna He's gonna he's gonna go this is this isn't really good. Are you crazy? Yeah. You crazy. And you know, I love bank. She loved bank, I say yes. But she loves bank, you say and I said, Look, girl, I put one slide in front of her. And I want to say what was on the slide, but she just said, you know, pat me on the shoulder and to go through your life. And it was over in 10 minutes. And so I had the mandate to do that came back. And obviously, we rebranded

Daniel Franco: 23:24

we we picked another iconic emblem, they didn't

Nick Reade: 23:28

we did I'll come back to that in a sec. But we basically the first phase was rebranding to the current logo. And starting to rebuild our whole positioning, we didn't have a lot of investment because at the time we were still being sidelined by Westpac. Westpac has choices of where it puts its lesson because the market he wasn't doing so well we were getting a lot of investment dollars so we had to make some tough decisions and we decided to we have 50% more branches than any other bank so we've shot a few branches reinvested that money into new technology and new refurbishment of of existing other branches, new uniforms marketing and the like and but ultimately we wanted to come up with a a little bit longer period down the track we wanted to come up with something that was going to be very different and noticeable and that's when we decided to take the popping shark off the flag and bring him to life. And you know as many people know, you either love him or you hate it but I'm in marketing I'm in love group in the marketing world that's odd is okay in the sense of getting noticed. Alright so what people absolutely knows that that's part of bank OSI and IT people don't realize it the reason why we took him off the flag is what he stood for on the flag and it was all about bravery and and courage and having a go and, and this element of positivity in it if you read the history behind it. And so that's what we wanted to portray, and we thought there's no better way to do it through through, he's a bit crazy and said some silly things all the time, but that's all part of it. And, you know, he's got a real sense of humor and, you know, we

Daniel Franco: 25:21

work connects to all markets, to have a bit of

Nick Reade: 25:25

fun with it. And, and to be honest, our brand recognition went to number one after that, and, and our business improved and you know, that that that client turned around, and you know that everything from the retail side to the small business side to the, to the business banking, all growing and still growing today. So it's, it's, it was a good turnaround, and I'm just so pleased to be a part of it now a lot more time there than I had seven years. And you know, it was fascinating, but also just rewarding from seeing the salt of the earth people beggars say people like that a lot of them been around a long time. They love their customers, they love their community. And, you know, it's all part of the experience.

Daniel Franco: 26:07

I want to talk about your because he was your first CEO gig, right? So some could say in your first gig, you play it a little bit safe, you don't make the unpopular decisions, you've come in and made a couple of unpopular decisions by clothes and branches and changing, changing the envelope and and all the How did you gain the confidence in yourself? Yes, you do that? And, you know, you said that Gail gave you her blessing, so to speak, you know, the whole process leading up to his I believe this will change? Where did that confidence come from? Well, I

Nick Reade: 26:44

think, you know, to me, it was just what needed to be done. And I guess, over, you know, my career, we talked about sort of, when I got feedback, but over time I developed and mature and, and, and I sort of had a lot of experiences, where, you know, I've innovated or, you know, marketing, you know, use marketing as a device or a tool or strategy. You know, the, the Falcon was another one that I observed, but, but we just use marketing in a way that to drive growth and change. And so I had a strong sense, this was the way to go. And I didn't have any money. So I had to make those tough decisions, it was just almost no choice, something I couldn't execute on the strategy, if I didn't have the funds to do it. I wasn't getting any more money. So I had to sell funded out of out of some of the change. And so I just felt like it just had to be done. And, and, you know, I've you know, courage is one of the things that I really believe in, in leadership, you know, you just have to have the courage to to make the changes necessary and, and believe in yourself to do it. And so that's where I was at the time. And yeah, that weren't popular. And I mean, I remember being on radio, trying to explain the logo. I'm just getting calls coming in to just kidding me. Yes. Sorry. To be back, you know, some colorful is a classic line. That's it said, you know, the only thing we need to change about the logo is you know, thanks, radio host I think it was Michael smartphones from ABC said that, we'll take that as a comment, not a question. Anyway, you know, like this, these things happen.

Daniel Franco: 28:26

It's amazing, our people how passionate we are.

Nick Reade: 28:30

Yeah, I love the person. But equally, they weren't aware of the, the context and the environment we were in in the fact that, you know, we needed to make this change, otherwise, we would continue down that path. And so you just keep it on the chin. And equally with branch closures. They're just not fun to do. Effects customers and effects staff. You know, most of the ones we did we didn't lose any staff. We just reallocated them, but yeah, we did. We did, you know, need to do it. And ultimately, the thing we saw is the trends to digital and you know, we had, you know, only about two or 3% of transactions being down in a branch and we had some branches where, you know, we'd have lucky to have 50 people coming in a week. So it was we were trying to deal with with the ones that were low usage and therefore less impact, but it's not no impact. And so I had many sleepless nights worrying about that because I don't like affecting customers at all. But equally I knew I had to do it to get on and deal with the overarching strategy and, and and needed that needed the investment to be able to do in that came from some some of those clauses.

Daniel Franco: 29:44

The the unpopular decisions, the desire to please not upset all those sorts of things come into the forefront when you are a CEO. How are you Manage even today's relevant question today? How do you manage the the idea? At will it almost fact that you're going to upset some people? Do you do manage that internally? Do Is it now water off a duck's back? Like, how does that work for you in its sort of little ecosystem? Because there's something that I struggle with is I don't want to do anything controversial, you know, all that above. And I know there's a lot of ladies in the same space, not that you're saying doing anything controversial, but more those unpopular decisions and just, again, the confidence in your ability to understand the strategy to execute on the strategy and know that you're going to upset some people along well, I think it's

Nick Reade: 30:45

about how do you bring people along? For the ride? Right. So you know, so at Bankers say, you know, one of the areas that I put a bunch of change into was the small business area, I did it because I saw enormous growth opportunity for small business, but we weren't operating in a way that I felt was optimal for, for growth. So you have to explain and try to paint the picture or the light on the hill, some people call it for people, for people to sort of go, Ah, so that's why you want to do that. Now, they might have a little bit of impact personally, but what I was saying to them is, if you work with me on this, we will grow this business, we will, we will have opportunities for you down the track. And we had, you know, at a time when, you know, the small business market in Australia might have been growing, sort of six 7%, bigger sales growing about two or 3%. So bit off the pace. But I said, Look, if we can make these changes, I reckon we can grow dramatically. What happened is, we made the changes, we end up growing double digit for the next five years and right, which, which created this enormous confidence in the team that they were they were, you know, performing well, they're more people coming in with promotional opportunities, more customer coming in, because they are seeing the growth and opportunity, we were really open for business. And but all that came from the very start explaining the strategy explaining why we need to change and in saying, If you give me a chance, this is where we're going to go. And they start seeing it, and they start believing in it. And then the sort of, I started moving with you as a bit of a movement, if you like. And it's the same thing right now in the public sector. Because the reason why I'm getting out and about so much and trying to talk to people about the purpose about the strategy is because I'm trying to, you know, engage with a huge group of people very diverse group of people that do exactly the same thing. Put the light on the hill, this is where we go, this is why we're going there. Why are we worried about economic growth, thriving South Australia and easy to do business with our three strategic priorities? Why is that important? And why is it you know, also, we've been very focused on three main areas, not 15. Yeah, and, and trying to engage a very large group of people and that, so it's a repeatable process, like, I'm doing it time and time again, you know, formula, if I ever, you know, do something else, I'll probably do the same thing again, right, because it's just the way I believe in bringing people along, when you do need to make change, but you have to engage them in why you're doing it, and make them clear that they will, hopefully they understand it, even if they don't 100% like it, they at least understand what you're trying to achieve and what the outcome will be. And what's what's ultimately in it for them if we achieve.

Daniel Franco: 33:32

Absolutely, we were we're a consulting firm, and we specialize in changes, change. We absolutely appreciate everything that you said then, because there is this common fallacy that people don't like change, right. And so the way always would say that that is that is a myth people do like change if they understand what's in it for them. So if I was to put a million dollars in front of you right now, I'm almost certain that you would like that change. Right? So there's a benefit to you. So it is about helping people realize this is where we're going this is the the potential where we could achieve this is what it means the community of South Australia. Yes. Me above. So

Nick Reade: 34:13

yeah, I mean, I think the interesting thing in the public sector context is is, you know, there, there are 110,000 people getting out of bed in the morning going to work, you know, as public servants for a reason. Yeah. And so we've really tapping into that, that that underlying sort of drive, that's that, why do you do what you do? And we're trying to amplify that and make sure that they're proud of it. Right. You know, I've been amazed at how hard people are working and particularly around COVID. But but but just generally, people out there in the community inside of us, you know, and it's it's really impressive to see what they're doing. And so tapping into that sort of that why and making sure that they're proud and we're telling those stories, because you know, it's Sometimes, you know, let's face it, the public sector is looked at in some lights, you know, in a negative context sometimes. And I think my job is to make sure that we get the message out about all the really good things that are going on, as well as you know, so that that's really part of what I'm trying to do,

Daniel Franco: 35:17

correct. I, I've worked in not government, but government owned in the SA water world. And yeah, if we ran a large cultural program there culture being people and culture and any heritage sort of stuff. But the the key part of that was storytelling, was drawing those stories, what is the best day at work look like? When you help the, at the time, it was helping the little old lady with a water sewer problem that she was having? It was the, if you remember the blackouts that we had, you know, the way we responded and helped and serve the people and community of South Australia. So really drawing that purpose out of, of their everyday lives and helping tell those stories is really, really powerful.

Nick Reade: 36:01

Yeah, that's very much core to what we're trying to do brilliant

Daniel Franco: 36:05

execution and strategy, something that you spoken about, and you believe it's the fundamental piece of strategies. It's great having a strategy, if you don't know how to execute, then what's the point of having a strategy? Can you talk to us about over your time, and you mentioned that just before about your almost formula, where this is the way you go about it? Tell us about your execution? And how you get the buy in from a your leaders? And what emphasis do you put on them to lead that execution? I'm really interested in and how you track that progress through the execution phase as well.

Nick Reade: 36:38

Yeah, no, you're totally right. It's no good having a strategy if you fall over on the on the execution of it, and very much learned that from my leaders over the years as well. I mean, it's I mean, I've learned it firsthand, but equally I've had it reinforced to me time and time again. And I think the way that I discovered it is, you know, for us the the current context, you know, very early, in fact, the very first day I started, I engaged the chief executives, across the public sector in what I thought might be a strategic framework, a very simple one, that around a purpose and three priorities. We shaped that together ultimately came up with with what we've got today, but but, you know, got to a point where we agreed that we really want to focus on economic growth, who do want to have a real focus on what we're calling thriving South Australia, which is the whole social, environmental, health, mental health, Aboriginal Affairs, that type of space, and then genuinely make government easier to do business with that, that was sort of in some ways, the easy part, right? The harder part is, how are we actually going to get on and make that happen. So for me, part of that was creating the governance around it, how we're going to manage it, how we're going to governance, so we've created three, councils, for each of the three strategic priorities 10 to 12, chief executives are in those groups, I chair or three of them at the current point in time. And we track and we will the forum is to is to develop the ideas, but also to, to allocate responsibilities out to track and monitor and to see how, how we're going, we've met six times already for each of those three. And I'm really pleased with the progress I think, to me, it doesn't also mean you have to sort of do it all yourself. It's about delegation, it's about providing opportunities for people. But it's also about accountability, you know, like making it very clear that if we're going to do something, we're gonna we're gonna deliver and hold people accountable for it. And so that's a little bit of a new thing in the public sector. It's not necessarily always been there. I can accountability. Yeah. Well, I think it's a it's an area that's probably, you know, developing. Yeah. And, you know, I have to say, though, it's, you know, I'm pretty pleased with where we're at, in the sense of the the level of accountability that I'm seeing from from everybody, so far. So, again, I think if you pick the right things, and people believe in what they are, that they're very keen to sign up to deliver on it. And, and delivery is, is also things take a little bit longer than I'm used to, but not a lot longer and but, you know, there's a lot of really good people working very hard. And there's just so many things happening at the moment. And there are a few distractions that get in the way like COVID at the moment. So which is happening for all businesses out there in the public sector is no different. They just happen to be a little bit more heavily involved in some elements like health and yeah, so Paul and others like that, so

Daniel Franco: 39:51

let's jump back slightly to the time where you decided I'm going to leave the my gig here. Thank you, Sam achieved all that I believe that I can achieve and jump, I'm gonna jump into the the role of CEO department. It's a big change, you don't normally see the private world move over to the to the government world. No. Is that something that you'd always planned on doing? Or? No, we use? We use sold the vision is that?

Nick Reade: 40:23

Yeah, pretty much I mean, you know, it was it was an opportunity that presented itself to me, which I wasn't exactly thinking about, to be honest. But it came at a time when, you know, I would be on seven years at Bank USA. And as I said, I loved my time there. I love the people there love the customers, and everything that we did, but also was, you know, it just came to me when I felt like, wow, that's a that's a challenge that I wasn't thinking about. And

Daniel Franco: 40:59

what what was the challenge in particular that

Nick Reade: 41:02

well, the challenge was good. I could I do? What I do at scale like that? Yeah, yeah. You know, whilst banker says a great business, and, you know, I've been in banking all my life. And so there was the scale question and the diversity question. And meaning, you know, I'm very aware that was, you know, this sort of hit at the public sector, that there are so many agencies who, who sort of do their thing and how to bring them together when they're just they're not like, you know, all bankers running around. Yeah, sort of, like, retail banking, and business banking, and various things. Yeah, we're all still in this very similar line,

Daniel Franco: 41:41

same industry. Yeah, this is 29. Agencies is their

Nick Reade: 41:45

memory. Yeah, this this sort of core agencies, but I think it's even 40 50. Well, well below the sort of smaller ones, some of the SA waters and the like, so it's huge. But, so I thought about that. And then I thought about, well, you know, I, I'm at a time in my life, where I could take a bit of a risk in the sense of personal risk. And, you know, wasn't sort of a, you know, a big problem to sort of, you know, financially or anything to take a step back and just just do this role, because, but the main thing that excited me about it was, is was could I have impact at scale for the for South Australia, you know, that excites me to think about, you know, really leaving a bit of a legacy. Yeah. And making some change and some transformational change. And so that's what I'm trying to do after 10 months, it's, yeah, we're definitely on the right track, but it's long, it's a long game. And so I'm happy with where we're at. But it was, it was really that, that huge challenge, you know, and, you know, it's, it's very rare that you get an opportunity like that to be to be right in the sort of inner sanctum of government and leading a large group of people, but working very closely with the premier, obviously, you know, so, I mean, I'm in cabinet, I'm in national cabinet with the Prime Minister. And so you really shaping Yeah, the state and, you know, it's a bit funny to say about that, but sometimes I catch myself going, wow, you know, sort of, in this conversation, where you're going, it's, I'm actually making it's heavy, juicy stuff, right, and supporting the premiere, I think he's, you know, doing a great job, I'm just amazed at his work ethic and, and sort of his his thinking. And so it's been good to sort of work closely with him on that agenda, as well. So there's a is the sort of the political agenda, which I don't get heavily involved in, but the but they're not independent of each other. Um, my job is in the, in the public in the public sector element, but they are connected, obviously. So that in the sense of some ideas and execution of some of those ideas, but yeah, so that sort of, and, you know, it's been a big, big change, I know, worked hard. And, you know, it's a little 24/7. So, it's, it's been stressful at times, but in COVID, obviously, a rule sort of wildcard in the I obviously, knew that coming in, because it was sort of halfway through COVID, but it just keeps throwing challenges at us. We think we're getting to the end. Yeah, we recently we had at the sand and we're planning to get to 90 and, you know, look at look at the removing a lot of the restrictions and then Omicron comes along, so it's just a real, there's never a boring moment for that.

Daniel Franco: 44:53

We'll get into that in a sec. That COVID pace, the the impact you said you're one of them. impact, and you've come up with those three strategic pillars. Can you explain those pillars to us? Yeah. So

Nick Reade: 45:07

the first one is economic growth. So we want to, to have economic growth towards 3%. So sustainable growth around 3%, which is really challenging. You know, I mean, my background is in banking and around the economy. I'm sort of very familiar with how hard that is. Now, funnily enough, you know, we're actually achieving it now. But we're achieving it now. Because you know, where we've come off a little bit of a, a sort of a COVID Dip, as every state has now the really pleasing thing about it relatively, we're going 3.9% is outstanding across the country. Yeah. I never thought Australia would be leading the country. Yeah. And economic growth, but it is right now. So absolutely. Hats off to everybody. But the challenge is to keep that going. Yeah. So our strategic goal is to keep it going year after year after year. And, you know, if we shoot the 3%, and we get two and a half, but over the long term, that's still very, very good. Yeah. And so that's, we got to grow state economic plan, we spent a lot of time working on that, and fine tuning that and adding some new ideas to it, which are coming down the pipe now. So that's the first one. You know, it's well set up, it's well governed. And there's funding through the jobs and economic growth fund to stimulate new ideas.

Daniel Franco: 46:30

We dive into that first one, before we get into the next to the is that where you're we're seeing now the introduction of the Amazons, the Googles the cognizance, all these companies coming in. Is that part of your and your team's doing? Oh, well, it's

Nick Reade: 46:43

not my team. In the sense that DPC, it's the public sector. Yeah. So trade investment will take the lead on a lot of that stuff. Yes, it is part of it. But there's some really bigger ideas coming, you know, that we're thinking about hydrogen and with about this concept of, we're calling northern water, which is about how do we get copper production improved in the north of South Australia through companies like bhp and oz minerals? Buy, the concept would be getting desalinated water up to them so they can increase their production and take their reliance off the great artesian basin, that type of big ideas. Yeah, I cheer that that steering committee and we're it's very early days, but the idea is is an amazing, yeah. Because it's a huge export opportunity, but in an environmentally friendly way. So it's really, really nice story. That one. Now, that's, you know, it's public. But it's very early days. Yeah. But we're doing the feasibility sort of early feasibility studies on that. So small businesses, another one, we're looking at population growth, and those sorts of things. So, so I've always been a believer in population growth. And, you know, we're just looking at, you know, investing more in that, and some in some resources, but also some marketing on the east coast of promote South Australia. Yeah, good things, because we got a lot of jobs going at them. Yeah. You just mentioned some names, and all those brands and companies have jobs here, in addition to pw C's and delights and and Accenture's and the like so. So we're trying to help them find those opportunities and equally try to get people from the East Coast to over here to it to Allah is definitely an interesting topics. We do a lot of work in the workforce planning space, we help businesses through government and corporate businesses through their workforce planning. And we're seeing those challenges at the moment align. And what we are seeing is that you have these companies like the Googles, the Amazons, Accenture is PwC, Deloitte, saying they're gonna announce 4000 jobs, 500 jobs, whatever it

Daniel Franco: 48:51

might be, which is really great, right? It's great for the state we're bringing world class businesses in. But what we are seeing is some of those businesses poaching from the small business there, because there's some a lot of talent here. And they're offering some really exorbitant prices for some of these people. You know, we're talking in excess of 50 grand sometimes. So that makes it a bit difficult for small business. So there's sort of this catch 22 world that we're seeing at the moment. It's great, because we want this state to move forward. But we also want to make sure we are looking after small business and giving them opportunities with government, which is a big thing that you're working on at the moment. Am I correct?

Nick Reade: 49:32

Yeah, that's right. That's right. I mean, there's a skills shortage. Yeah. And COVID and border closures have not helped. So, unfortunately, it is what it is. But but so we are seeing some sort of salary appreciation if you're like, in that area, particularly in the technology space. It's it's right up there. And no, but we you know, we can only do what we can do, hopefully when the borders fully off Open international borders, we'll have more migration. And we'll see things settled back down a little bit. But, but we're playing on a global scale, as companies, many of them play on a global scale. But we have so much going for us here in South Australia. So part of what we're trying to do is, is make sure people understand that, you know, and we're using a whole range of different strategies, but we have to get our, our brand out there on the east coast. So we're sort of will be looking to do that, in the near term, to make sure people are aware of what what South Australia has to offer, because we are increasingly having these great job opportunities, but we're also got a great lifestyle, and, you know, get around easily and and we're very connected. And, you know, we've, we've got some great examples. You know, I think you were at the lunch I spoke out recently where I talked a little bit about cognizant, you know, it was the connectivity of Adelaide in South Australia, which ultimately, so that made them think wow, this is so good. We, you know, we've got a, we've got a great opportunity to grow a business here. There is the talent here, but also the connectivity to the premier to people like myself and government, but also to the private sector. Everybody knows everybody here. So it's, it's very easy. And when we die, we're one phone call away from getting introduced to some one degree of separation. And having worked in Sydney and Melbourne, that doesn't happen as much, it's a bit more everyone for themselves. Yeah. And so that sort of, collegiate sort of I sort of concept and the connectivity, I think is a real benefit for us. Plus, you know, food, wine, easy to get around all that just becomes a really, really important formula, I think, for us to sort of play on a national scale, an international scale. I'm like

Daniel Franco: 51:45

you I'm South Australian born and bred through and through. I couldn't find a more passionate person about South Australia other than myself. The one thing though, when I And while we're talking about economic rise of South Australia, confidence, or economics is affected by our confidence and right and with these border closures and the potential opening that we happen on the 23rd, Friday, the 23rd of November. Now this new variants out, and there's some lack of confidence in the world, people aren't traveling here, because they're concerned that things might get shut down. Are you noticing that having an effect? And? And is are we getting it right? Or are we still just trying to figure

Nick Reade: 52:22

out what it is no crystal ball is seeing. So we've I felt like we had a good pathway, you know, at the 80%. And with a Delta variant in mind, obviously, Army Chrome's come along and, you know, change the game a little bit in the context that we don't know what we don't know. And so there are some genuine concerns across the world. And, you know, say Australia is no different, particularly from the health conditions and key stakeholders there that worry about what it might mean, because we're still quite haven't quite got vaccination to where we'd like it to be ultimately. So it's just a bit of a watching brief, but hopefully, in the next few days, we'll get some information that will help us understand that a bit better, but you know, and I think there's just some confusion about that. And also, you know, there's the need for some, still some quarantine we call it TT IQ, but it's a sort of a process around you know, test tries isolate and quarantine and it's just some people having to go into seven days quarantine and, and just, you know, there's a huge complexity behind the scenes. I mean, people would love it to be more simple, but unfortunately, COVID is a little bit complex. Yeah, I want everybody to have we got two simple, we can create risk. If you go too hard. Everybody's got hearts. We've tried to layer the approach, but that just create a little bit of complexity.

Daniel Franco: 53:52

It is a little bit of elaborate, especially for small businesses try to work their way through that. The one thing that I when we talk about the variant has thrown a spanner in the works and we're unsure about that does the VAX Oh, is that because is the vaccination that we've we are receiving not covering that variant is that where the we don't

Nick Reade: 54:13

know yet. So you know, I'm not sure what our time this this goes to where we may not but current day at this point, we don't know where we are at. Yeah. So it's literally we're waiting to hear what we do now as it's more transmissible. Okay, but we don't know is will the vaccine work when current vaccines work? And we don't know, with any hard evidence, the sickness and symptoms. So, you know, if the vaccine is in the lab right now being being tested against Omicron works well that'll be fantastic. That'll be a great step forward and will give us confidence that that's one less thing we need to worry about. And then we obviously we need to evidence from How sick are people getting around the country in the likely hospitalization and things like that? At this point in time, it doesn't seem too bad, but we just don't know. And what we're doing is it's affecting younger kids more than delta, which is a concern. But but it doesn't necessarily mean mean the catching more. Yeah. But we haven't got any strong evidence of sort of, you know, more sickness. But so we're desperately waiting for that information, as soon as we have that will then be able to recalibrate. And yeah, and maybe, maybe that we we are back to sort of the plan a Yeah. Because it's it's similar to Delta other than the transmissibility. But remember, if more people catch it, then that does potentially amplify the number of people that might ultimately go to hospital if you got a lot more people catching it. Yeah. offset by vaccinations increasing?

Daniel Franco: 55:54

Yeah, there's so much that comes into it. I think we're the if

Nick Reade: 55:59

I've learned more about this thing than I ever thought I would know.

Daniel Franco: 56:03

If we, beside the vaccinations don't have the positive effects that we're after. Is that plan being worked on right now?

Nick Reade: 56:14

Well, yeah, but it's a global issue. Yeah, it's not just the sales. Because we're, you know, globally, we're on, you know, particularly the Western worlds on sort of, you know, two or three vaccines. Pfizer being the predominant one, but you're gonna Turner and the like, so we would need to sort of develop different vaccines. And certainly, there's definitely thinking around that. You know, with a little luck, we'll know, in a very short term, whether that's an issue or not, we hope it's not. And, you know, I think there's a reasonable chance that there'll be some level of vaccine efficacy that call. Yeah, from to the on the Chrome and let's Fingers crossed. That's the case,

Daniel Franco: 56:56

it seems to me is almost like the flu virus. Now we have every year we're getting a new hearing coming out, you know, you have the blue hand strain, then you have the Delta strain. And

Nick Reade: 57:05

I think it's about 15. Yeah. But I will have been over time, but yeah, you're right. That's, that's, that's possibly just what's happening here. And, you know, we may end up in a variant that, like, my understanding is Omicron, has pretty much taken over in South Africa and filters not disappeared, but almost. And if it does turn out to be lower sickness, and that's almost well, then that's a good thing, you know, so that's one scenario, we just don't know,

Daniel Franco: 57:37

let that one spread. And then yeah, kind of watch.

Nick Reade: 57:40

If that becomes the case will then we will be open borders. We want to welcome them in. But you know what? scenario that is? At least better than if it's got the

Daniel Franco: 57:58

alternative. Alright, let's move away from the COVID. World. Thank you for jumping down that rabbit hole with me the the government making. So when you say, as part of one of those pillars is making your life easier? Yep. To get back to business.

Nick Reade: 58:16

Yeah, so that's all about, I guess, making government easier to, you know, easier to deal with. And, you know, like, whilst we do multi jurisdictional research around, so comparing ourselves to other states, and we actually rank pretty well, in that, I think we would all from the inside, but also, from the community know, that sometimes government isn't easy to do business with or to deal with. So I think there's a huge opportunity to, to improve processes to to genuinely update our our focus on customer service, yeah, to build a cultural program around that. And that's what I'm trying to do. It's very early days. But we do have quite a bit of quite frankly, right now, we're, we're very focused on on a lot of technology in the health space. So my quarantine app that that we're using is also being used by New South Wales and Victoria piloting as well, which is our technology being used by you know, two of the biggest states in the country. So we've got some good capability here. We're building in our digital and tech teams. And, and we're looking to use that and grow that and we've got a number of roles we're recruiting for right now that are building out that team because we see a huge pipeline of digital technology, whether it be on you know, on your desktop, or probably more likely being on your phone. Yeah, coming down the pipe. So you know, we do see significant productivity gains for the public sector. But most importantly, Customer experience gain. So yeah, just making things easy. So just digitizing processes. You know, you know, when you sort of think about, you know, tell us once, in 15 years, that you go from one agency to another, that somehow we've got some idea what's going on. Yeah, and these are some of the big goals. And I'll have to stress it, you know, we need to improve our architecture and our whole process around that our, our CRM systems and the like, but it's a big goal. And, you know, a state like New South Wales is seven years into this. And so they've been going at it for some time. They've gone as far as they've got a minister for the customer service. Yeah. So, you know, what I'm really pleased by is the sort of the commitment from the chief executives around this program, it's governed through one of those councils. In fact, today, we have our meeting, and, you know, we are progressing really, really well. But it's a it's a, I'm under no sort of illusions that it's a huge program. And, but it's exciting one, because it's not just about digital, it's about culture. It's about physical elements. We've got, you know, service essay stores out there, and what can we do with those, and so many things like that. So it's exciting program, but you know, we brought on some people, small group of people to, to lead that program across the sector, but equally, we will be expecting agencies to pick up the the some of that work and just get really focused on this. So it's a it's a huge program, but it's early days, but I'm very excited by

Daniel Franco: 1:01:37

it is exciting, is the because what I heard there was all of it like it was customer experience. And all the above. Is that. So when making it easy to do business with the government, does that include people actually trying to do work for the government, as opposed to just what the outfight outside facing world sees? As in? Because I know, there's a whole bunch of procurement processes in place there.

Nick Reade: 1:01:59

Yeah. I mean, well, it's everything. It's It's It's consumers, you know, businesses dealing with government, its internal, like if you're Treasury Department and you're servicing your customers, actually, DPC. Your Health. Yeah. Or education. You know, that's also an a customer, this is an internal one. Or if you're providing goods and services to government, so you're right procurement. You know, I think that's an area that I hear a feedback on that can definitely be improved. So we so I think, yes, in any respect, if you're dealing with government, whether your internal external, or buying goods and services or selling goods and services to Yes. So, you know, we, in mind, the challenges can't do everything at once. So I decided to sort of program that. And what we have done is, research around what the pain points are. And we've infield it right at the moment with some more research, validating our focus areas and getting deeper. So we've got to, we've got a couple phases of research, we've got went out and found out about a bunch of pain points. And then we picked the ones that we thought were the most important ones. And then we're going back out to research exactly what customers would like to see in those areas. As a starting point, at least.

Daniel Franco: 1:03:18

Yeah, idea with the procurement process slightly. Sometimes it feels a little bit disjointed, just purely from the simple fact that the company might have like I work for a small business, if I want to use a supplier, I go out and use that supplier, right. I don't have to get through. So I think that that in that element is there are some like we offer a very niche product, specifically a change workforce plan that you know that world we sometimes are the best for the for the client, and that might be a government client. But because it sends over a certain amount, they then have to go get three quotes. My concern with that is that it might not all be fair, right when getting the three quotes, because there's sort of this. If that system, there seems slightly broken the way it works, but I understand government needs to be aboveboard. There's some red tape there. Yeah. Well,

Nick Reade: 1:04:08

there are some good reasons for some of that. But I would Yeah, I would agree with you. My first pass at some of it does look a little bit like it could be improved. There are some limits where you can directly term, procure services, you know, under certain dollar amounts and things like that. But yeah, like, the general comment, I do think it's an area of that we need to keep focusing on

Daniel Franco: 1:04:33

you are going on a pretty aggressive recruitment strategy in the moment in amongst all these, these pillars that you're working to. You're bringing on some amazing people. Yes, some of them, are you James was one of them that you brought across the previous and there's the Soviet who I know quite well, and you're grabbing people like you know, they these individuals who are very forward thinking who are very innovative, who are very keen To change and grow and, and create an impact, they come into a government world, which is probably not known. And you mentioned earlier, things can move a little bit slow at times. How are you managing those expectations with some of the people that

Nick Reade: 1:05:16

Just being honest? You know. I think it's really important that we don't oversell the opportunity. But equally, these people, you know, we've just also hired just Leo from the editor of Sunday mail come over. And we've got a number more in the pipeline, some some international talent as well, we've hoped to pick up which for me is so pleasing. And why it's pleasing is because I feel like that, with the addition of the current great people we have in government, bringing a few more people in just the supplements that and start this sort of movement, I call it like, you know, so when I was at ANZ small business, and it was, you know, it wasn't a fun place to be. How did how did it how did that turn around? Part of it was bringing some new people in? Yeah, and some excitement and some energy and some drive, and then they end up bringing people with them. Yeah. And, and bringing up the ones that, you know, great in who are already there, you know, so it's this sort of I call this movement, like I say, was no different. You know, yeah, there were a couple of changes I made in personnel in the early days. And, you know, that was the start of this movement. And I think I'm just a little bit excited about the green shoots that we're seeing with some of these highs you're referring to, they're all on strategy. So there are there in, in some of the customer experience space, the digital space, the column space, the customer experience, space, all these things are economic policy and strategy team. This is what we, you know, essentially, we're just executing on the strategy, right? And we need talent to do that. And some will be coming from internal, some are coming from external. And the blend of both of those hopefully will create that, that momentum. And off we go. Yeah. And start to, to deliver on the strategy. And yeah, so yeah, those people you mentioned plus a few more coming, you know, I'm very excited by the other thing I'm hearing is we're getting, so we've got a number of roles going in the digital space, and the quality of candidates is better than we've ever seen. Yeah, I think part of that is linked to, you know, the storytelling, yeah, the strategy. But also, the cool work that we're doing, thing, how to work on some of these apps that were that are really important to health, or, or some of the stuff we've got coming in the broader agenda is really cool. So you get to work on some good things. And we're trying to, you know, we're more more trying to also compete, you know, because it's a general comment, the public sector doesn't pay as well as the private sector, but we're, I'm doing everything I can do. Because I know that market we have well, so we're, I'm using every available technique to sort of be competitive as well.

Daniel Franco: 1:08:17

There's some really great apps coming in, especially in the health world. Now, at the moment, Once COVID is under control. He is there fear of an exodus, because of that, not

Nick Reade: 1:08:28

only God, I mean, like, I mean, we got 1000s of things. And, you know, so now I think in the consumer and business based on these multiple years of work, that we're thinking about, and it's so there's, you know, ultimately we feel like we have one window to government for consumers, and another window to government for business. And the richness of the of the all the different ideas of how we can make that experience better is just so deep, that I think we've got years of excitement for people who want to come and work in government, I just encourage people out there who are thinking, perhaps they're in the private sector, and artists, encourage them to have a think about the public sector and getting involved in, in helping to make a difference for the community or for businesses out there. Because it's I do find it very rewarding when you sort of, you're actually at the at the sort of pointy end of some of this stuff. Yeah.

Daniel Franco: 1:09:22

Want to touch on the workforce planning element of the government and 110,000 people you bring in it's really great talent who bring in some excellent and innovative ideas, which is great, contributing into the execution of the strategy. How are we best utilizing the people that are currently within government and helping them grow? You're helping them move in their careers in the right direction for those that want to obviously,

Nick Reade: 1:09:47

yeah, I mean, it's it's interesting because I mean, what, what's important to know about my roles, I'm not deep in any particular agency, because it's so big. I don't have time to to to sort of go deep on, you know, education or health or, or child protection or human services, but But what we're trying to do is set the sort of strategic priorities. And part of that is the people agenda. So working very closely with Irma

Daniel Franco: 1:10:15

Renier. Coming on next year.

Nick Reade: 1:10:18

Okay, okay, good. Yeah, she's great. So I'm working with Mr. And the chief executive council on, on sort of one of those sort of people related to TG areas we can work on. And I do think some of the stuff I've just talked about is part of that. But equally people development, I mean, ever runs a great leadership academy. And I think we can do a lot more in that we can do more in the graduate space. And we've got some pretty good ideas that we're working on, haven't announced yet. But we're, we're working on people as a real focus for next year. Because we do see, I sort of want the government to be a talent factor. Yeah. That's developing people from within, and attracting new ones. Yeah, we do have turn either and every year, you know, 1000s of people will turn over. And that's not a bad thing. It's just happens. Because we have so many, you know, small, few percent of attrition. Yeah, it's 1000s of people. Yeah. So you know, how do we replace them with with the right people that develop our our existing ones, so we don't leave lose so many would be also good. But so we've got a whole lot of ideas. It's it's a challenge, though, because it's so diverse. So ultimately, we want to set the two or three strategic priorities and the people agenda, the workforce agenda, but also we let the the C C's or the agencies run the run the show, but we coordinate, you know, and role for him or myself in that, in particular.

Daniel Franco: 1:11:40

Yeah. Touching on the innovation piece within the within government. Government notoriously hasn't been the most innovative. And obviously, this is something that you're trying to rattle the cage, which is fantastic. Is there concern? Look, typically, when you innovate, you have to spend some money, right. And that's not always the case. But you've got to invest some time, effort, resources, whatever it might be money into the process of innovation, being in the government role. Organization, you're always thinking about the taxpayers money, and all this sort of stuff. How do you blend those two, when they sort of collide? That, you know, the taxpayers money versus I actually need to spend some money to innovate? How do you how do you manage it? Yeah,

Nick Reade: 1:12:27

look, it's a challenge. And, you know, very conscious that we have to be very focused on on sort of delivering value and not wasting money, or the really good thing about what we're doing, you know, is we are delivering, you know, very, very important solution. So, you know, an example would be my team built in a very light. One was about 24 to 48 hours, we built the online online booking engine for COVID, when they had those large queues down, and then a pack for testing. And as I'm sitting there going, Oh, my God, this is a problem, this is a problem. And the traditional way would have been often procuring, selling and taking, you know, weeks and months. Yeah, so we don't have that time. Yeah, we have to do something today. And luckily, I've got a great team who can do that, you know, they just need the sort of mandate to do it. And, and so we did that very quickly. And, you know, it worked very well. And still working in that regard. So the capability is there. And, you know, to me that this sort of test is improving the customer experience. And often part of improving the customer experience is also doing it faster and cheaper. So there is a productivity gain. So you have this perfect world of you're actually making life easier for customers, businesses and consumers. And you're doing it faster and cheaper. So the business case, if you like, is right there in front of you. Right, so Well, customer wins. And the public sector wins because we're doing it faster and cheaper. Yeah. And and then if you do that at scale, well, then the opportunity really is about thinking about, you know, what does that productivity dividend look like? And so, anyway, we're, again, we're early days, but the sort of, you're right, generally speaking about innovation, but I've been surprised at how many great people there are, who think the right way and I think part of my role is to sort of amplify that and just sort of give them a bit of a mandate to so you can do this stuff and wishes our people to get out when we did some of that that health tech stuff including home quarantine, everyone's gonna come I can't believe you did that. Yeah. And, well, it's possible when and, and we can do it quickly with some new agile working methodologies that we're employing

Daniel Franco: 1:14:59

so more More of that, please keep keep that up. What is your we started the podcast, we talked about you being everywhere. What does your typical day look like you are everywhere I see of of the

Nick Reade: 1:15:13

start about 630 in the morning, and I'm starting early, I always start early at Bangor savings, which is about 736 30. Roughly I start

Daniel Franco: 1:15:24

as any as in suit on your starting office. Yeah.

Nick Reade: 1:15:28

Luckily, I live close to town, but But it's, you know, early start, because that's the time I need to be productive. Because can be from seven 730 meetings, kick in. And try not to, but I do come along from time to time, but from about eight o'clock meetings kicking generally. And it just goes all day, and, you know, typically starts to slow down in terms of meetings around six and then try and catch up on a few emails and but then it's just the nature of the VC sort of, you know, phone calls, emails, nighttime, you just customer stuff. I mean, I'm someone who's I live in breed the customer experience. So I see someone struggling on Twitter or, I mean, they're trying to solve, trying to try to lead from the front. And this customer experiencing isn't a gimmick, you know, I live in breed this stuff. And you know, just before here, I was helping someone out in quarantine. Yeah, you know, just believe in helping people. And I think if people see me doing it, then they're going to be more likely to do it. Yeah. Right size up. Yeah, lead by example. Exactly. So. So it's busy days, you know, it's a lot of COVID At the moment, but you know, I mean, cabinet committees, I mean, cabinet itself, I mean, national cabinet, which we have on Friday. And a lot of these councils, you know, the three strategic priority councils. And it's quite a lot of meetings, more meetings than I would have ever been used to, but, but it's the nature of the role, a little bit of time in there to think. But equally, now, I've got a few of my team in place on out about more, as you say, I saw, My desire was throw myself into the detail in the early days, set up the team, and then get out and about, and I'm standing to have that time to, to get out to all the agencies around town, and talk to their people and go to those awards ceremonies and, and really communicate the agenda, the strategy, the governance, the purpose and, and also spending quite a bit of time on the communications part. You know, so people say I do you know, to have someone do all your social media for you, oh, you'd be surprised how much heavily although I am in it, because I believe in it, I have some help. But I also helped craft it and edit and it's got to be authentic. Yeah. And quite heavily involved in a

Daniel Franco: 1:18:03

bit of a following a becoming bit of a celebrity. Yeah. But but

Nick Reade: 1:18:08

it's a good story. So yeah, you know, and, you know, it's, it's important, I think that people start to see that, and I think we should walk a bit more proudly, you know, in the public sector, there's some really good stuff going on. And I think there's been a little bit of a secret about that, or not, not proud enough to sort of, although very proud people, but it's just that, you know, communication element. So that's why we're sort of really focused on that with Jane and Jess coming in, and we're gonna really be set up because telling those stories is so critical to building that culture that we want,

Daniel Franco: 1:18:47

it is very refreshing, seeing your posting and getting involved a lot. So kudos to you. Yeah, I

Nick Reade: 1:18:54

think it's, I think it's a bit different. Yeah. It's getting noticed, you know, like, I've always done that type of thing, but in the public sector context, I don't think it's been done much. But you know, I think we're, we're very keen to deliver on, you know, and make people aware of the purpose and so a lot of the stuff we're doing is linked to the hashtag Megan Yes, hashtag thriving so that that is what we're tagging everything with begin with all the stories we're communicating link to that, you know, the the example yesterday with the Human Services awards is just another example of that.

Daniel Franco: 1:19:31

One thing I am passionate about, like running my own business, I'm my hours are not too dissimilar to you. And one thing I always try to be keen to learn from you is how do we realize our vision as leaders, we try to realize our vision walls, you know, at the same time trying to cultivate a loving family loving relationships, all the above. How do you manage that in your everyday?

Nick Reade: 1:19:55

Look, it's difficult. I wouldn't I wouldn't say It's easy, easy to do. You know, I've had some really busy times over my career, some really challenging times, where I've been, you know, stressed and probably creating a bit of a nightmare at home. And this is probably been one of them insensitive. At times, it's been very hectic. And that's difficult. I'm, I'm lucky at this point in my life. And one of the reasons why i i took on the challenge is my kids are a bit older. Yeah, you know, they're 21 and 19. And whilst I, I'd like to stay at home, and I'd like to, to be around them, they are becoming a bit more independent. So, you know, if your alliance isn't there, if I had a four year old, a two year old, you know, taking on this role, you know, maybe a bit of a challenge, to be to be quite frank, because it is all encompassing. But, um, yeah, so I sort of, tend to think about it rather than day to day, I tend to think of it as you know, talking to my to carry my wife at the start of the process and go, Look, this is what this is going to look like, and, you know, try and get some agreement and do my best to hang on, on the way through because she's, she's corrected me a few times. And I have a feeling, which wouldn't be a surprise to some people out there listening. But, but you know, in the day, she's very supportive of what I'm trying to do and, and has been through my entire career, actually. So it's people say, you know, about your side of the fence, but I couldn't do what I do without having that. No doubt. So it's been very, very important.

Daniel Franco: 1:21:45

Yeah, brilliant. Just conscious of your time. We'll wrap up with one last couple more. One last question. My question. This Fast Forward 510 years, and we're in a world where you've been CEO for a while now, looking back at what you've achieved, what are your What are you saying?

Nick Reade: 1:22:06

Look, I guess I'm gonna, I mean, this sort of making a difference thing, I guess, is very much around the public sector, but it's sort of what I live in breeze in any role. You know, I don't do anything by half. Everything I do, I try and do my absolute best. I love the people elements, you know, like, I'm still very close to a lot of the bank, OSI people, I ended people from 15 years ago, still message me and say, you know, remember these days? And yeah, because we had some fun times. I like having fun as well. One thing that may not be evident to people at the moment, because I'm so sort of focused, is I do I having fun, and particularly with people, so I'll look back at all the people moments and how I've helped people along the way, but equally, how I've had an impact, you know, and certainly been at the forefront of Internet back in the 95 with com second digital back then, you know, I tell some young people about I was in business, the first do anything with the internet, and I look at me, like, Are you kidding, I am, but we had to start somewhere in Australia, but all the way through to some of the big transformational programs and change and Becca sighs one of those kinds of small businesses another, but working with some amazing people. And this current one i that, you know, I can leave a legacy where, you know, have had some impact at scale, and South Australia is better for that would be my goal. You know, at the end of the day, all I can do is the best I can, you know, and then whatever happens next happens next up, I've never actually changed the role in my life. So in the day I go, one of the things I've learned over time is just do that you're all you're doing writing out the best you can, and the next thing will come along. And that's worked well for me. And so I can do it for as long as I can. And, you know, if it changes, it changes, and whatever comes next, I'm sure I'll frame myself into that as well. You know, I've got energy. Also, I'm not young, I'm sort of young at heart and have energy to throw out lots of things, I still do a lot of things. You know, in the on the side, I sort of love startups in that space. And, you know, like investing and real estate and various just, you know, just those sorts of things. And so I think down the track, I'll continue to do that. I think I'll always be involved in startups because I just love the whole sector and helping young people get a start and just the loyalty that comes from that and the sort of, you know, backing ideas is really fundamental, whether it's in that type of thing or even backing ideas and in business, a lot of doing

Daniel Franco: 1:24:57

brilliant look, thank you for your time. Today, thank you very much for all that you're doing, you have made an impact. In your 10 months in this new role, you've obviously had a very illustrious career within the CEO roles previous to this one, but you're, I think I use the word refreshing before it is very refreshing to see someone like yourself come in, rattle the cage slightly without, you know, in the right way, and bring in some really great talent, you know, almost step your foot down, we are going to be innovative, we are going to change we, we do want to connect with the customer more, we do want to connect with small business and business more and make that world easier. We're looking to grow the state as proud South Australian, you know, be called a backwater state, but some other companies, you know, that hits home and it cuts deep and, and you're coming into change that really set a vision and not be the little cousin anymore to Melbourne and Sydney. But to be

Nick Reade: 1:26:00

Yeah, it's definitely been, you know, on the wrong end of those jokes before having lived in Sydney, Melbourne as well. But yeah, hope Hopefully, they're almost gone. And, you know, thank you for the feedback. But we're very early days. So yeah, very conscious that we got a lot of work ahead of us. But that's part of it. And you know, you, I can guarantee you listeners that we've got a very focused team on, on delivering on that, and, you know, it's gonna take some time, but we might not be always perfect. And there are things that we need to improve, we know, but we're going to get on with it. And hopefully we can make a difference.

Daniel Franco: 1:26:39

Brilliant. Where can we find you? Follow you all the above? LinkedIn? Yeah,

Nick Reade: 1:26:44

LinkedIn, Twitter a little bit. I'm sort of tweet a bit, but my main sort of communication channels, LinkedIn, yeah, I find that the best balance and less, you know, sort of, into the spectrum you can find on Twitter nowadays. So I do use that channel. But LinkedIn is my primary one. Got it? Quite a few connections on there and find the feedbacks pretty balanced. And just a good channel to get the message out.

Daniel Franco: 1:27:11

Yeah. So get on and follow Nick. And it's Nick. N I C K, R, E, A, D, E for Reade. So thanks again. We'll take care guys, we'll catch you next time. Thanks for listening to the podcast. Or you can check out the show notes if there was anything of interest to you and find out more about us at Synergyiq.com.au. I am going to ask though, if you did like the podcast, it would absolutely mean the world to me if you could subscribe, rate and review. And if you didn't like it, that's alright too. There's no need to do anything. Take care guys. All the best. Thank you

Synergy IQ: 1:27:49

once again for joining us here at creating synergy. It's been great spending this time with you. Please jump on to the synergy IQ Facebook and LinkedIn page where the discussion continues after the show. Join our mailing list so you'll know what's happening next at Synergyiq.com.au. And of course don't forget to subscribe to this podcast. And if you really enjoyed it, please share it with your friends.